by Merry Farmer
Malcolm nearly spit out the gulp of tea he’d just taken. Heat rose up his neck to his face, and he wasn’t sure whether to avoid Bianca’s impish grin or to take her to task for it.
Katya stopped pouring and glared at her daughter. “Hold your tongue or you’ll be sitting out today’s activities.”
“Really, Mama,” Bianca huffed. “You can scold and threaten me all you’d like, but you aren’t fooling anyone.” She glanced to Malcolm to make sure he understood the statement applied to him as well.
Malcolm set down his cup and frowned. “I am astounded at the level of insolence at this table. It might not be my place to reprimand another’s children, but really, girls. If you show this kind of cheek in public, you’ll be banned from society in no time.”
“I don’t care about society,” Natalia declared, tilting her chin up.
“We’re sorry, Papa,” Cece rushed to apologize. Her color was still high, though, and mischief sparkled in her eyes. “But you really aren’t fooling anyone.”
“I just think it’s hypocritical for Mama to spend the night with Lord Malcolm when she won’t even let me say hello to Inspector Craig,” Bianca said, stabbing at her sausage.
Katya was in the middle of stirring her tea and set her spoon down with a loud clatter. “Enough,” she snapped. “Lord Malcolm is right. The two of you are behaving far beyond the pale.”
Bianca and Natalia shrank a bit in their seats, their smug grins disappearing.
“No, Lord Malcolm and I aren’t fooling anyone,” Katya went on. “Not in this house, at least. Yes, we’re lovers. We have been for decades.”
“Decades?” Natalia blinked.
“You’re not ignorant babies anymore,” Katya continued. “Heaven knows you haven’t been raised in what society thinks of as the proper way. I’ve always been free with information when you’ve wanted to know things, and so I’ll tell you this, if only so that you’ll bite your tongues in the future. People live all sorts of different lives. Sometimes they marry and sail through their lives as happy as characters in a fairy story. Sometimes they don’t. And sometimes they find happiness when and where they can, even if it comes outside of the prescribed norms. The secret of life is to know when to declare yourself and when to conduct your business in private. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Mama,” Bianca answered, meek on the surface, though Malcolm detected a spark of cunning in her eyes.
“Natalia?” Katya asked.
Natalia stared at her plate with a curious frown. At last, she took a breath and looked up. “What do you mean, ‘decades’?”
Katya’s righteous anger shifted into a tired—and perhaps slightly sheepish—sigh. She glanced to Malcolm, one eyebrow raised as though asking for help.
The corner of Malcolm’s mouth twitched. “Don’t look at me. I’m still waiting to see how far you’re going to go to ruin my reputation in my daughter’s eyes.”
He spoke with enough humor in his tone that Cece merely laughed. “Oh, Papa. Your reputation isn’t ruined at all. I’ve known you and Lady Stanhope were carrying on since I was twelve.”
That had Malcolm’s brow shooting up. “You have?”
“I’ve known since I was ten,” Rupert said from the end of the table as he scanned the headlines in The Times, as uninvolved in the conversation as it was possible to be.
Katya didn’t look surprised, but Bianca’s jaw dropped in outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked her brother.
“It wasn’t appropriate to discuss,” Rupert said, turning a page of the newspaper.
“There,” Katya said, picking up her teacup. “At last, some sense.”
“This is so unfair,” Bianca sighed.
“Did you meet for the first time before I was born?” Natalia asked, strangely quiet.
“Yes,” Malcolm answered. There didn’t seem to be any point in denying things now. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Katya wore a much more cautious expression, however. In fact, it bordered on alarm. “It was a long time ago,” she said, sipping her tea as though thinking about it.
“My first wife, Cecelia’s mother, Tessa, had recently died,” Malcolm explained to Natalia. “Your mother was so kind and helpful as I dealt with that grief.”
Bianca’s eyes went wide, and she jerked to look at Katya. “You were still married to Father?”
Katya flushed, but there was a hardness about her face that wasn’t embarrassment. “My marriage to your father was not a love match,” she said in a tight voice. “We’ve discussed this before. And we will not be discussing it further at the breakfast table. Particularly not when we need to leave for Buckingham Palace within the hour.”
Cece gasped, glancing to the clock that stood on the mantle at the far end of the room. “Oh, dear,” she said, pushing her chair back and leaping to her feet. “I have so much to do and not enough time to do it in.”
“I’ll help you,” Bianca said, standing as well. She hooked her arm through Cece’s and started to rush her out of the room, sending Katya a disappointed look as she went.
“I’ll help as well,” Natalia said, rising more slowly. She followed her sister and Cece, but frowned at Malcolm as she left the room.
When only Malcolm, Katya, and Rupert were left at the table, Malcolm huffed out a breath and sagged back in his chair.
“Strangely enough, exposing my past to my daughter and looking like a fool for it wasn’t on my calendar for things to do today,” he said, though if he were honest, he wasn’t sure whether to be angry or relieved that he wouldn’t have to hide things anymore.
“They all knew,” Katya said with feigned calm. And it was feigned. Malcolm knew her well enough to sense something about the conversation they’d just had was deeply unsettling to her. “It’s better to have it out in the open, now that they’re all adults.”
“I wouldn’t say Natalia is an adult yet,” Rupert commented, turning another page of the newspaper. “I’ll talk to her about keeping family business within the family.”
Rupert didn’t see the stung look Katya sent across the table to him, but Malcolm did. It was painful. Without notice or effort, Rupert had usurped what had been her duty since the girls were born. An odd pang formed in Malcolm’s chest. Katya was a proud woman, God knew. He’d wrestled with her pride for years, but he’d never dented it. He’d never wanted to. Yet with one sentence, Rupert had reduced her to second-rate importance.
“Do you want me to talk to Stewart about bringing the carriage around?” Malcolm offered, searching for a way he could help.
Katya turned the same, stung look on him. “I’m perfectly capable of directing my own staff,” she said, rising and marching from the room.
Malcolm sighed, taking one final bite of sausage before rising himself.
“Don’t mind them,” Rupert said, folding his newspaper. “Everyone’s overexcited today because of the presentation.”
Malcolm shook his head. “You have a lot to learn about being a true man, Lord Stanhope,” he said, standing. “You’ve wounded your mother terribly.”
Rupert blinked, startled. “I have?”
Malcolm sighed and shook his head before marching out of the room.
He wasn’t able to find Katya, which worried him. Although it didn’t worry him for long. Within minutes, the whirlwind of the girls was back, and preparations for departure got underway. Malcolm had his hands full keeping the girls from giggling themselves stupid and aggravating the staff while they did so.
Katya appeared just as they were about to leave the house and pile into the carriage. By all outward appearances, she was as elegant as always, but Malcolm was certain it was all a show.
“Are you all right?” he asked as they climbed into the carriage along with the girls. Wisely, Rupert had chosen to ride his horse behind them, but five people, even in an open carriage, was tight.
“I’ll be fine,” Katya replied as the carriage jostled into motion. “I just hate getting old.”
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Malcolm grunted and reached for her hand under the folds of their coats. “I know exactly how you feel, though I would argue that you’re hardly old.”
She smiled at him, and for a moment, the world was right again. The drive to Buckingham Palace was a pleasant one. The April sunshine was warmer than usual, which was a blessing. As they drew closer to the palace, more carriages transporting excited young women and their doting mamas could be seen. People were lining the roads near the palace to get a look at them all. When, at last, they joined the queue of carriages waiting to let debutantes out at the palace door, the crowds were smiling and waving.
“Mama,” Natalia asked as the ripple of impatience was making them all restless. She’d been surprisingly silent through the whole ride, leaving Cece and Bianca to do the chattering.
“Yes, dear?” Katya turned to Natalia.
Natalia pressed her lips together, her brow knitting in a frown. “I’ve just been thinking.”
“Always a good idea,” Malcolm said, praying they’d make it to the front of the line soon.
Natalia glanced at him with a deeply assessing look, then back to Katya. “Is Lord Malcolm my father?”
Malcolm started to laugh.
Katya remained stony-faced and silent, color splashing her cheeks.
Malcolm’s laughter died, and a slipping, swooping sensation filled his gut. His pulse kicked up, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Eyes wide, he glanced to Natalia. He’d always thought she looked a great deal like Katya, with her dark hair and eyes. But there was something in the shape of her mouth and chin, in the stubborn determination she sometimes showed. He shifted to study Cece, whose mouth had dropped open in shock as the truth dawned on her as well. Yes, there was a resemblance there.
“Kat,” he snapped, his voice barely more than a whisper. He glanced to her, numbness spreading through him at her downcast eyes and guilty expression. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The carriage jerked forward, bringing them to the front of the queue. Footmen in royal livery stepped forward to open the carriage door, one of them offering a hand to Cece.
“Kat,” Malcolm repeated. “Look at me.”
Slowly, with pain pinching her mouth and fear in her eyes, Katya glanced up at him. The truth was there in every guilty line of her face. Natalia was his.
Chapter 8
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Katya had spent years debating whether it should happen at all. Natalia deserved more than to be branded a bastard and treated as an object of rage, which was exactly the look in Malcolm’s eyes now. That didn’t stop Katya’s stomach from twisting, or keep her from second-guessing the secret she’d held onto for sixteen years.
“My lady?” the palace footman prompted her, clearing his throat.
Cece and Bianca had already stepped down from the carriage, although they stood to the side, eyes wide. Natalia sat frozen in her seat, her face pale as she studied Malcolm with new understanding. Malcolm looked as though everything had vanished around him and that the two of them and betrayal were the only things left in the world.
It couldn’t go on like that.
Katya took a breath, forcing herself to appear calm and in control of the situation in spite of the tempest in her soul. “Now is not the time, Malcolm,” she said, moving to take the footman’s hand and alight from the carriage.
“When is the time, then?” He followed her, helping Natalia down as he did.
The fire in his eyes was enough to melt a lesser man, but Katya had withstood much worse. Though it was harder to keep a hold on the belief that right was on her side.
“Cecelia is about to be presented to the queen,” Katya snapped, rounding on him as he marched to within inches of her. “Kindly keep your fury in check.”
“Like you keep everything you feel in check?” he bit back at her. “How much have you hidden from me over the years? What other secrets are you keeping?”
“More than you want to know,” she hissed, darting a quick glance around.
Rupert had just dismounted and handed his horse over to one of the palace grooms. “What’s going on?” he asked the anxious group of girls, all of them glued to the confrontation as though it were a play.
“Mama just admitted that Lord Malcolm is Natalia’s father,” Bianca whispered.
“He’s what?” Rupert bellowed.
Several people waiting in line to enter the palace turned toward them. So much for discretion. Every tenant that Katya had built her life upon was shaking at its foundation, but she would not let the whole thing collapse.
“Lips shut, tongues bit,” she told her daughters and Cece. “That’s the first lesson all of you need to learn if you want to call yourselves grown women.”
“Yes,” Malcolm seconded with venom in his voice. “Bottle it all up. Keep those secrets locked away. Never give a man any reason to trust you.”
“Malcolm,” Katya snapped, glaring at him. His bitterness banished any guilt that lingered in her. His reaction was exactly why she’d kept the truth to herself. “Remember where you are.”
He surprised her by clamping a hand on her arm and marching her to the side of the slow-moving line of debutantes and their sponsors entering the palace. “I had a right to know,” he hissed once they were hidden from view by a parked carriage.
“You did not,” Katya said through clenched teeth. “Natalia is my daughter. I brought her into this world, alone and in pain.”
“You should have told me.”
“You abandoned me to a life of isolation with a man I didn’t love,” she said with a startling burst of emotion, as if those agonizing days were yesterday instead of nearly two decades ago.
“Robert was your husband,” Malcolm said, glancing away, guilt of his own pinching his features.
“And did your attack of conscience help either of us?” Katya asked. She shook her head. “Robert knew Natalia wasn’t his, but he was willing to accept her as his own.”
“And then he died.” Malcolm turned his glare on her again. “You should have told me then.”
“When I was newly widowed with three children under the age of five? I was nearly a child myself, not even twenty-three, and suddenly the duties of an earldom were on my shoulders.”
“I would have been there for you,” he insisted, his anger now mingled with regret. “I would have married you in an instant.”
“And taken everything away from me all over again.” She shook her head. “I’d already had my life wrenched away from me once. I’d had enough of being put in my place, relegated to an ornament in a man’s household. I wasn’t about to give up the power that had been handed to me just so you could soothe your guilty conscience.”
“I loved you,” he argued, passion of all sorts in his voice.
“You loved Tessa. I was merely a distraction from your grief. I always have been.”
The truth Katya hadn’t dared to admit to herself felt like a knife in her gut. Tears stung at her eyes, but she wasn’t about to give in to them. She sucked in a breath and stood straight, marching past Malcolm with her head held high.
“Where are you going?” Malcolm demanded, striding after her.
“Your daughter—Tessa’s daughter—is being presented at court, and it’s my duty to accompany her,” Katya answered without looking at him.
The girls and Rupert were waiting by the palace’s grand entrance, looks of shock and worry in their eyes.
“Is everything all right, Mother?” Rupert asked, his formality clearly meant to intimidate Malcolm.
Katya laughed, half at her son’s efforts to protect her from a man infinitely more powerful than him and half over the hopelessness of the situation. “Everything is fine, dear. Cecelia, are you ready?” She marched past the startled group into the doorway, turning back to beckon to Cece.
“I…uh…I’m ready.” Cece sent a worried look to her father, started after Katya, second-guessed herself, then scurried back to a glowering Malcolm to kiss his
cheek. “We’ll work this out after the presentation, Papa,” she said before hurrying after Katya.
The kiss didn’t appear to do anything to soothe Malcolm’s boiling temper. He glared at Katya with the look of anger that could only come from being betrayed by someone you loved with your whole heart. Katya wasn’t foolish enough to think it was solely because of the revelation about Natalia. She met his eyes with implacable strength, knowing the entire history of their relationship had just boiled over. And there was nothing she could do about it.
“Watch after your sisters,” she said, sending a look to Rupert.
Rupert nodded without a word, turning toward Malcolm as though he were a threat.
“My lady, you’re needed,” another of the palace staff said from inside the door.
“Yes, yes.” Katya sighed and walked away from the debris of her life exploding to escort Cecelia into the palace.
“I’m sure Papa will calm down and view the situation rationally in time,” Cece said as they joined the line of other debutantes being directed through the cavernous halls of Buckingham Palace. “He really is quite sensible. Except when he’s upset.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Katya said, though she was anything but. She was willing to wager that she knew Malcolm better than his daughter did.
The two of them remained silent as they were ushered up a flight of stairs and into the anteroom where final preparations were being made for presentations. The mood of the room was excitement and joy, which formed a stark contrast with Katya’s growing feeling of loss and grief.
“I have a sister,” Cece said, her smile brightening as they stood waiting.
Katya blinked out of her anxious thoughts and managed a smile for her. “You do, in a way.”
“I’ve always felt as though Bianca and Natalia were sisters of sorts,” Cece went on. “I think I could get used to the idea of Natalia being a real sister.”
“And Rupert being a sort of brother?” Katya asked, one brow raised.
Cece’s smile dropped. “Oh, dear.”
